LONGWOOD, Fla. – A spike in deadly SunRail train crashes involving pedestrians this year could have been avoided, transportation officials told News 6.
A 70-year-old bicyclist killed Monday after a crash near Lake Mary is the fifth fatal crash this year, making 2017 SunRail's deadliest year since the commuter rail started operating.
Three people called 911 to report Monday's crash at North Ronald Reagan Boulevard and Longwood Lake Mary Road near Lake Mary.
"I don't think there's any way he survived it," said one caller, describing a bicyclist maneuvering between two lowered arm gates at the train crossing and attempting to beat a speeding train.
Stewart Lashley was pronounced dead at the scene.
Records obtained by News 6 show that since SunRrail opened in May 2014, six people were hit and killed by moving trains. All were people who placed themselves on the tracks, investigators said.
Counting Monday, five of the deadly encounters happened this year:
- On Aug. 24 an 84-year-old man with dementia was struck and killed near Orange Avenue
- A pedestrian killed in March near SunRail’s Seminole campus was also a suicide
- A 13-year-old boy died May 19 crossing the tracks in Sanford
State troopers said that in each of those crashes the victims should not have been on the tracks.
"All of them could have been avoided. Whether it was a pedestrian a bicyclist, whether it's another vehicle, 100 percent preventable," Florida Highway Patrol Sgt. Kim Montes said. "When the crossing arms go down, that is the absolute finite warning to tell you that it's not safe to go past that point because there is a train going and that train has the right of way, always, 100 percent of the time."
Officials from the Florida Department of Transportation, which manages the commuter rail said recently that $400,000 has been budgeted to add chain-link fencing along the rail corridor of 12 sites in Orange and Seminole counties in an attempt to eliminate cut-through foot traffic over the mainline railroad tracks.
FDOT spokesperson Steve Olson also reinforced what Montes said. It all comes down to following the signs and basic railroad safety.
"We need drivers, pedestrians and bicyclists to be careful around trains, obey crossing signals and don't linger at railroad crossings, don't trespass on train tracks, cross only in designated areas and be mindful that trains can come any time, from any direction,” Olson said. “Also avoid distractions."
Olson said FDOT would continue to increase its safety outreach, working with law enforcement to spread pedestrian awareness around the tracks.
See a map of all the SunRail-related crashes since 2014 below: